'Nathalie Paley in a Lucien Lelong dress and evening coat' by Dorvyne

Studio Dorvyne

22 x 14 cm.

Gift of S.H.C.

1934

Gelatin silver print

GALK3401

Palais Galliera, musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris

Natalia Pavlova, daughter of Grand Duke Michel and the Countess of Hohenfelsen, married couturier Lucien Lelong in 1927. This cultivated, sophisticated woman became Lelong's official ambassador and posed for the leading fashion photographers of the time. Her overt narcissism helped build the Lelong reputation at the same as her sobriety of taste left its mark on the house style. This image by Dorvyne, famed for his fashion work in the 1930s, is a tribute to the elegance of a princess seen here wearing a velvet evening coat with wide fox-fur sleeves. After her divorce in 1937 Nathalie Paley left France to try her luck in Hollywood.